Diploma project
Spring 2020
Institute of Architecture
The project “At Home” is a series of six architectural explorations set in motion by six case studies. The project aims at exploring the qualities and characteristics of apartments in which people want to stay for a long time, not necessar-ily because the architecture is fantastic, but because the place is very much their own - because they feel at home.
The project begins with a question:If my goal is to design apartments where people choose to live for a long time, what can I learn from studying apart-ments in which this has already happened?
The project begins with a question:If my goal is to design apartments where people choose to live for a long time, what can I learn from studying apart-ments in which this has already happened?
The project consists of two phases. In the first phase, I interviewed people who have lived in their apartment in Oslo for more than 20 years - some their whole life. I met them in their home for a conversation and wanted to understand the apartment both as an architectural set-ting, but also from the user’s perspective - to learn how the spaces had been used, how its use had changed over time, and what the owner appreciated about their home. Using photography, photogrammetry, drawing, models and writing, I’ve attempted to explore the qualities they convey and the architectural conditions that made it possible for them to inhabit the place in the way that they have.
In the second phase I wanted to test my findings. Almost all the people I have met live in apart-ments which span from the front to the back of their building. I have been interested in how the potential of the spaces I have researched could be translated into more contemporary typologies such as apartments with one facade and apartments which occupy corners. Through designing new apartments, of the roughly the same size as the case studies, but within a different typology, I have been forced to study how the situations from the case studies were made possible.
Martin Tosterud / martin.tosterud@gmail.com
